This chapter addresses three questions that arise from Hume’s observations about character in the Treatise: whether Hume can talk about enduring traits that constitute character, given his depiction of the mind as in flux; whether character is “objective” or a creation of spectators; and whether Hume’s treatment of virtue and vice is only descriptive of how we derive our moral categories. I argue, first, that since Hume distinguishes between the feeling of a motive and its causal efficacy, he can observe that, while feelings may be fluid, character is determined by which has the force to produce action consistently. Second, the contingency of moral categories on human nature is not the same as creation of the features that fall under those categories. Third, Hume both describes our process of moral discrimination and offers guidance about making judgments of virtue and vice. However, he is not defending his view of moral character but employing the norms that arise from human practices.

Mœurs, the second major censorship topic, were cornerstones of how contemporaries shaped their world, especially as regimes changed. This chapter is organized thematically around the topics of love and relationships, titles (especially ‘citoyen’ or the lack thereof), brigands, justice, and false appearances, before concluding with new material on the fate of Le Mariage de Figaro – a play that touches on many of these themes. These examples, which include major comedies as well as works at the Porte Saint Martin, the Gaité, or the Ambigu-Comique, and secondary theatres in the provinces, demonstrate how the state and contemporaries used censorship around the depiction of mœurs to advance their specific view of the world. Interestingly, when it comes to mœurs, the limit of the tolerable where lateral censorship kicks in is often within the legally permissible, revealing a gap between what people wanted and the reality of a new political regime.

This chapter examines how markets influence decisions regarding animals. It begins by analyzing the supply side, focusing on production costs associated with improving animal welfare. It then explores whether markets erode moral considerations and discusses corporate social responsibility strategies, specifically voluntary actions taken by firms to enhance animal welfare.

The other philosopher writing in Kant’s wake who figures prominently in the origins of “continental” philosophy is Hegel. Although many of the seeds of Hegel’s thought were planted by Fichte, Hegel’s works ultimately had far greater direct impact. Hegel was not, however, an ethical or moral philosopher like Fichte. T. H. Irwin plausibly claims, indeed, that Hegel actually denies that moral philosophy is “a distinct discipline.” But Hegel had a massive influence on the history of ethics even so, including on “modern moral philosophy.” Partly this was as a critic, not just of moral philosophy, but also of the modern conception of morality itself. Hegel argues that what he and other moderns call “morality” (Moralität) is a formal abstraction that is incapable of “truth” or “reality.” Moral philosophers who focus on oughts and obligation mistake, in his view, an abstract moment of practical thought for something realizable; they fasten on a desiccated abstraction rather than the “living good” that is embodied in actual modern (liberal) customs and institutions, what Hegel calls “ethical life.” Hegel’s critique of morality begins a tradition that runs through Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche in the nineteenth century and through Anscombe and Bernard Williams in the twentieth.

This chapter analyses compliance motivations and their alignment with existing taxonomies: extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivations, cooperation vs. coercion, and trust-based vs. monitoring-based approaches. It then explores the advantages of voluntary compliance over coerced compliance, both in the short term and in the long term.

The Desolate Boedelskamer was an innovative institution. It introduced a new approach to insolvency. Rather than punishing the insolvent debtor, the Desolate Boedelskamer sought to raise him up. Even though it remained firmly embedded in the early modern mental world and its communal culture of governance, the Amsterdam Desolate Boedelskamer is a clear example of how professionalization and good governance were able to provide systemic trust in a world of growing complexity. This new institution was part of the moral economy of seventeenth-century Amsterdam and relied upon it to function, but it also helped to shape that moral economy. Through a careful balancing act of trust and power, this institution was able to support the proliferation of credit, granting numerous insolvents in seventeenth-century Amsterdam a true stay of execution. In this analytical conclusion, the impact and wider implications of the book's argument will be discussed in a broader context.

This chapter analyzes the shift towards a closer involvement of the Amsterdam authorities in the lives of citizens from all layers of society that occurred through various institutional innovations after the city turned Protestant in 1578. Credit was a unifying economic phenomenon in Amsterdam, and examining the function of credit allows us to shed light on the connections between people from various classes. Focusing on the phenomenon of insolvency, essentially a breakdown of credit, makes it possible to open up broader perspectives on the early modern economy. Guilds and their civic middle-class values shaped social and economic policies of this period in important ways, clearly displaying the integration among different social groups that also came to be reflected in contemporary legal theory and practice. Religious communities also occupied an important role in financial conflict resolution between creditors and debtors. The moral dimensions of insolvency that become manifest through the acts of various Amsterdam consistories reflect important changes in the attitudes towards insolvency that are typical of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.

This concluding chapter highlights the important contributions that this volume makes in featuring the diversity of forms of leadership in the ancient world and in illustrating how ancient people were asking questions about leadership that we should be asking more often today. It further argues that future research on ancient leadership should help readers to draw connections among the different forms of leadership in the ancient world, especially those readers who are not expert in ancient studies, and also to draw lessons that can help us better lead and better select our leaders. Ancient leadership studies need to play a vital role in helping us understand contemporary leadership as a moral, creative and collaborative art that we can all learn from one another.

The anthropology of ethics and morality has become a key area of research and theorization. The “ethical turn” has involved several approaches ranging from Foucauldian studies of ethical self-cultivation and virtue ethics to ordinary ethics and moral experience. Among these approaches, psychological anthropologists have figured centrally, contributing to the development of neo-Aristotelian and phenomenological frameworks. Prior to the current surge of interest, psychological anthropologists were at the forefront of earlier debates on morality. These studies concerned questions of moral relativism, moral emotions, and the socialization of morality in early childhood. This chapter examines psychological anthropology’s engagement with ethics and morality from early work in search of the universal qualities of moral values to contemporary developments in the study of moral experience and relational ethics. The review concludes with a consideration of future directions for engagement with ethics and morality in relation to decolonization, activist anthropology, and the role of nonhuman forces – from cascading disasters to algorithms – in shaping ethical life.

As the situation in South Vietnam deteriorates, American Catholics wrestle with the morality of American intervention in Vietnam in light of Vatican II. A triangular relationship develops among those who support US intervention, those who oppose it, and those who are critical of the methods employed by the US and its South Vietnamese ally.

After President Lydon Johnson announces a massive increase in US troop levels in South Vietnam, American Catholics become more deeply engaged in debating the war, particularly in terms of morality. The radical Baltimore protest attracts attention to the Catholic antiwar movement.

Because the full reconstruction emerges piecemeal over the course of the study, this chapter starts by summarizing the most fundamental ways in which Aquinas connects the big-picture elements of his ethics through his understanding of happiness, both individual and common. The chapter then offers reasons for thinking that Aquinas’s ethics of happiness is still worth taking seriously today. In particular, it focuses on three illustrative aspects that make Aquinas’s ethical views distinctive and appealing. The first is Aquinas’s account of the nature of happiness and how that account fits into his broader understanding of well-being. The second is Aquinas’s account of the relationship between the right and the good. The third is Aquinas’s account of the most comprehensive role that virtue plays in ethics and human life.

Moral beliefs are often proposed as causes of violent extremism, specifically, and political violence more generally. Yet, few empirical studies focus on the general causal links between morality and violent extremism. We review several strands of scholarship that bear directly or indirectly on the morality-extremism link. Several general psychological frameworks that cover morality can be applied to explain extremism, notably the Moral Foundations Theory, the Theory of Honour Culture, moral universalism, and theories of moral dilemmas (the Trolley problem literature). Other approaches, such as Virtuous Violence and Sacred Values Theory, provide more direct morality-based explanations for extremism. Our main contention is that the causal link between moral beliefs and violent extremism remains woefully unexplored and that this presents a sharp contrast with the central role that extremist movements often attribute to moral narratives in their justifications for violence. We highlight the need to incorporate morality-based appeals (linked to the reviewed frameworks) in studies of interventions to combat violent extremism and that policymakers should recognize the potentially significant role of moral beliefs as a driver of extremism.

When the Abbey Theatre faced rioters in 1926 during the first performances of The Plough and the Stars, the theatre managers decided to continue with the scheduled seven-night run and then to revive the piece three months later. However, despite that boldness in the face of opposition, O’Casey subsequently found himself confronted with various kinds of official and unofficial censorship, both in Ireland and elsewhere. This chapter details that censorship and describes its effect on O’Casey’s work and reputation. The chapter examines O’Casey’s work in the theatre, and also examines censorship of O’Casey’s nontheatrical work, such as Windfalls, I Knock at the Door, and Pictures in the Hallway.

Based on the degree of trust established in infancy, the belief in the possibility of control from the toddler period, and the successfulness of practice in peer interactions in the preschool, most children are prepared for the new meanings made possible by close friendships and real world competence of the elementary years. At times, success here can alter somewhat negative meanings brought forward from earlier eras. All children are now armed with logic and a more realistic understanding of causality. This allows them to see things as they are, including comparisons between them and others. A great leap in moral development occurs as children come to understand and affirm the value of rules and norms. Despite limitations in their degree of flexibility, embracing these norms can provide solid ground for the more relativistic and principled understanding of adolescence.

Chapter III delves into the discursive mechanisms through which former Israeli conscripts in this study understood, justified and/or distanced themselves from the violent regime in which they serve(d) – relating this to the broader context of ‘moralised militarism’ so frequently attributed to the Israeli military. Through analysis of the speech acts, moralisations and emotive articulations by former and current soldiers, I argue that traits of emotional expression, reflection and critique – far from being anomalies of militarised masculinity in this context – are central to its legitimation and idealisation, enabling the soldier, and society more broadly, to retain their sense of humanity amidst enduring violence. Rather than performances of stoicism and emotional control with which ‘traditional’ forms of militarised masculinity are normatively associated, a more philosophical, emotive, and cerebral approach to violence appears to be celebrated and encouraged within Israeli militarism – consolidating the supposed relation between militarism, masculinity, and moralism in the settler-colonial state.